London's Perfect Scoundrel (17 page)

His gaze dropped for a moment. “That’s very nice of you to say, I suppose, but believe me, I am a self-serving, hedonistic bastard.”

“Perhaps, but that’s not all you are.”

To her surprise, his mouth curved in that damned sensuous smile of his, instantly transforming him from innocent to so…enticing her mouth went dry. She swallowed again.

“You are a very interesting female,” he murmured. “But is it for my sake or your own that you claim to see some sort of redeemable qualities here?”

“Both of us, probably.”

“Honesty again.” He batted her toe again, absently, like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. It was the first time he’d touched her without demanding more, a kiss or his hand up her skirt. A warm tremor went through her.

She took a breath, trying to retain her sense of logic. “Why do you behave as you do?”

“Because I can? I don’t know. How, though, will you ever know if you’ve saved me or if I’m merely playing with you?” He straightened, making her abruptly aware that she was sitting too close.

Before she could fling herself backward, he seized her by the ankle and tugged. With a grunt, she fell forward
off the stool, bumping her bottom against the hard dirt floor.

Even as she opened her mouth to scream, she realized no one was close enough to hear her. Before any sound came from her throat, Saint leaned across her, placing his hand over her mouth. “Shh,” he whispered, slipping his free hand into her pelisse pocket and retrieving the shackle key. “I suppose we’ll find out right now whether you’ve redeemed me or not,” he said. “Care to wager on the outcome?”

“But—” She grabbed for the key, but he evaded her grasp, planting himself on her skirts to keep her from rising while he shoved the rusted key into the rusted lock and twisted it. With a snap the shackle opened, and he was free.

He stood to fling the restraint against the wall, and Evelyn scrambled, half crawling, for the door. If she could get it closed, the key remained in the lock, and she would still have him imprisoned.

With several long, limping strides, he beat her to the door. “It’s not going to be that easy, my dear,” he said.

For a moment she thought he meant to escape and lock her inside the cell, and white cold panic hit her. “Saint—”

The marquis reached around the door, pulled the key free, and closed it. “I told you this wouldn’t last much longer.” He smiled, catlike. “And I also said that you would be the first person I came after.”

And next would be the children, and the orphanage. She couldn’t allow that. Evie lunged for the door key, but he lifted it above his head, out of her reach. Unable to stop her forward momentum, she slammed into his bare chest, pushing them both back against the wall.

“Interesting strategy,” he murmured, twining his free
hand into the back of her gown and drawing her closer against him. He met her gaze for a heartbeat, then leaned down to kiss her.

It was a hot, deep, openmouthed, plundering kiss, the kind that knew they had no witnesses, nor anyone likely to come looking for them—for her—for hours. She needed to get out of there, to lock him up for the sake of the orphanage. But if he was kissing her like that, some part of her reasoned, he couldn’t be thinking of escape.

Evelyn kissed him back, heat searing down her spine and out along her fingers and toes. Her hands, already reaching up for the key, sank into his damp, dark hair. She wondered whether other women felt so intoxicated, so overwhelmed by his attentions. He nudged her chin up and began a series of slow, warm kisses along her jawline, and her breath became a fast, ragged pant. She couldn’t get enough air, couldn’t get close enough to him.

“You’re trying to distract me,” she accused breathlessly, pressing herself against his bare, damp chest.

Saint shook his head, looking away just long enough to throw the door key across the room. “You’re distracting me,” he growled, slipping his fingers beneath the material at her shoulders and peeling the gown down her arms with aching, slow relentlessness.

His mouth and tongue and teeth followed, and he turned them so that she was the one pressed back against the wall. In a second he had her pelisse open, and he reached beneath the material to cover her breasts with his palms. Even through the thin muslin of her gown she felt the warmth of his touch, the pressure of his embrace, and she gasped.

“Saint, please,” she practically whimpered, seeking his mouth again.

“Please what?” he rumbled, pulling her forward
against him to yank the pelisse off her arms and down to the floor. Like a skilled harpist playing the strings, his fingers ran down her back, and her gown loosened. Nudging her back again, he stripped the material down to her elbows, imprisoning her arms in the muslin. Before she could answer or even do more than gasp again, he took the shift, the only thing covering her front from his glittering gray gaze, in both fists and ripped it open.

“Oh! Saint, please—”

“Michael,” he breathed back, glancing into her eyes before his gaze returned to her breasts. “Call me Michael.”

“Michael,” she managed, then couldn’t even breathe.

He ran his fingertips across her breasts, light but utterly ruthless, circling closer and closer until his thumbs crossed her nipples. They hardened beneath his touch, budding as he passed his nails back and forth across them.

“Good hea…heavens.”

“Your skin is so soft,” he murmured, then lowered his face. “So soft.”

With one hand he continued to tease and mold her left breast, while he ran his lips and the tip of his tongue around her right one, following the path his fingers had blazed. When he took her nipple in his mouth, she thought she would faint right there.

Evelyn lifted her chin and closed her eyes, overwhelmed by sensation as he suckled first one breast, then the other. She couldn’t move, didn’t want to move, as heat spread down her body and deep between her legs. With her arms half pinned, all she could reach was his waist, and she clung to him, trying to draw him closer, wanting to be part of him.

His mouth and hands left her breasts, and she opened
her eyes again. “Don’t stop,” she begged, embarrassed at the keen wanting she heard in her own voice.

“I won’t,” he returned almost soundlessly, taking the arms of her gown and drawing them down her elbows, freeing her hands and then pushing the material down to her feet.

Kneeling, he continued his slow destruction of her shift, ripping it inch by inch to her waist. Every inch of her skin that he exposed, he covered again with his mouth. Downward, past her navel, past the dark patch of hair at the apex of her thighs, traveling down her hips, her thighs, to her knees.

“Lift your foot,” he instructed, and he slipped off her thin shoe, the gown with it. Repeating the action with her other foot, he trailed his hands and mouth up again, up the insides of her thighs. And then he slipped a finger inside her.

“Oh, God,” she whimpered, her legs trembling.

“You’re wet,” he murmured. “For me.”

“Michael.”

“Shh,” he continued in the same husky tone, standing, gliding his hands up along her body to her shoulders so he could push off the ruined shift, sending it to the floor with the rest of her clothes. “I want you, Evelyn Marie. I want to be deep inside you.”

Lifting her in his arm, he carried her the few feet to his mattress and rumpled blankets, and knelt to lay her down there. He sat, turning sideways to pull off his boots, wincing as the left one came free. “You’re hurt,” she said unsteadily, trying to blink back to reality.

“My ankle’s swollen,” he answered, facing her again. “You’ll pay for that in a minute.”

“I—”

“You’ve caused swelling elsewhere, as well.” He un
buckled his belt and with swift fingers unfastened his trousers. Shoving them down, he came free, erect and hard and very, very large.

“Oh, my.”

“Now you’ve seen a man naked and aroused with wanting you,” he continued, leaning over her, taking her breast in his mouth again and suckling hard.

He settled between her knees, kicking off his trousers and spreading her legs as he brought himself closer to her, until the swollen length of him pressed against the inside of her thighs.

“Michael, please,” she managed, reaching up around his hard, muscled shoulders to pull him closer, her heart pounding so hard and fast she thought she would die from it.

“Please what? Say it, Evelyn Marie. I want to hear you say that you want me inside you.”

“I want you inside me.” She had no idea what to do to make that happen, but her body knew. Arching her hips, she lifted toward him. “Please,” she said again, “please, now.”

Lifting onto his hands, he covered her lips with his again, teasing her mouth open with his tongue. She felt him slide slowly inside her, between her legs. “It will hurt,” he murmured against her mouth, his own breath not quite steady.

“How—”

He pushed his hips forward. She felt him reach her barrier, then with a fast, tearing pain, break through and fill her.

She shrieked, squeezing her eyes closed and arching against him, bending her knees harder. That brought him in deeper as he followed her retreat with his body. Slowly the pain eased, and when she opened her eyes he
was looking down at her from inches away, his face hard with tension. “Pain for pain,” he whispered, and pulled his hips away again.

“No, don’t leave,” she protested.

“I’m not.” Slowly he pressed forward again, deeper and deeper, until he was fully buried. “And now, pleasure for pleasure.”

He repeated the motion, thrusting against her, into her, slowly and deeply. Evelyn couldn’t think any longer, couldn’t manage a thought other than how satisfying it was to have him moving inside her. She felt heady and tense, her body tightening around him as though it knew before she consciously did that more was to come. She moaned in time to his deepening thrusts, raising her hips to meet him and clutching her fingers into his back.

“Michael, oh, Michael,” she gasped, then with a pulsating rush she shattered, crying out his name.

His hips moved harder and faster, his pace more urgent. He lowered his head, kissing her deeply, then shuddered, holding himself tightly against her. “Evelyn,” he murmured, tucking his face against her shoulder.

He lowered himself against her, breathing hard and hoping he wasn’t crushing her. From the tightness of her grip around his waist and the slowly relaxing spread of her legs beneath him, he didn’t think she minded. Good God. If that was what bedding a proper virgin was always like, he’d been missing out.

He’d meant to draw it out longer, punish her with his mounting, but when she’d come, pulling him in and pulsing so tight around him, he hadn’t been able to hold back. He didn’t lose control like that; not him, and not after all this time. No female made him feel that way. But she did. And he wanted to feel that way with her again.

“Michael,” she whispered, and he lifted his head to look down at her.

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen from his kisses. Saint kissed her again, slowly and deeply. “Yes?”

“Is it always that…nice?”

He could truly punish her now, if he wanted to, tell her whatever he chose. Instead, he shook his head. “No, it’s not. You are exceptional, Evelyn.”

With a reluctant scowl, he withdrew from her warmth and turned onto his side, keeping one arm across her slender waist and pinning her between himself and the wall. His mind didn’t want to function yet, but he knew he didn’t want her getting away from him. Not until he’d figured out some things. And not until he’d figured out what he needed to do next, besides make love to her again. Repeatedly.

He braced his head on one crooked elbow, looking down at her. She smiled, delicate fingers reaching up to trace his scraggly jaw. “I knew you had a good heart,” she whispered.

“What does my heart have to do with this?” he asked, trying to ignore the rush that her gentle touch roused in his chest.

“Remember? You said if I took you inside me, you wouldn’t close the orphanage. That’s why we…” She frowned, obviously reading the suspicion in his expression. “Isn’t it?”

Saint sat up. “Are you saying that you whored yourself for those brats?” That was unacceptable. She’d wanted
him
, not something from him. If not, that would make her just like everyone else—and she wasn’t like everyone else.

“No! I wanted to…do that with you. But you made
a deal. That’s why you wanted to be with me, isn’t it? So you could keep your word?”

“I wanted to be with you because I wanted to be with you, Evelyn,” he grunted, an odd, painful feeling continuing to grow in his chest. Perhaps his heart was giving out. They said that was what had happened to his father, in the end. “It doesn’t mean anything other than that.”

She sat up beside him, lovely and soft and still utterly naive about his empty soul, despite what he’d taught her about her body. “But you gave your word.”

“And you kidnapped me. Remember that, my love?” He shifted his bruised, raw ankle for her inspection, and she gasped.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know that,” he grumbled, grabbing his trousers.

“Please…” she began, then changed whatever she’d begun to say. “If you’re going to have me arrested,” she managed, “just please tell them it’s all my doing. No one else’s.”

Trying to ignore her pleas, which continued to cause some painful commotion in the vicinity of his chest, he gritted his teeth and yanked his ruined boot back on. His other boot followed, and he picked up his dirty shirt and pulled it on over his head. He needed to get away from her, away from her soft skin and honey-tasting lips, so he could think.

“Michael,” she continued anyway, putting a hand on his arm, “Saint. Don’t blame the children. Please. They have no one to speak for them.”

He gazed at her, pulling his arm free and standing. “They have you,” he murmured, and slipped out the cell door.

Though she expected him to lock her in, he left the
door open and continued upstairs and into the main cellar, leaving her in candlelit silence.

“Oh, no,” she whispered, a horrified sob breaking from her chest. They’d all be arrested, Victor’s political career would be destroyed, and the children would lose the orphanage in favor of prison—and all because she’d failed. Again. All she had to do was convince him that he had a heart, and that he should listen to it. All she had to do was think of a way to keep him from razing the orphanage.